Sports

NBC explains Super Bowl blackout seen by millions

Eagles fans at Chickie’s and Pete’s in South Philadelphia during Super Bowl LII between the Eagles and Patriots on Feb. 4, 2018.

ELIZABETH ROBERTSON / Staff Photographer

An estimated 100 million people are watching tonight's Super Bowl, magnifying even the smallest technical errors that would get overlooked during just about any other broadcast.

So when the live feed of NBC's Super Bowl broadcast went dark for about 20 seconds, millions of viewers were left scratching their heads, especially considering NBC collects a cool $5 million for each 30-second ad that airs during the Super Bowl,

"We had a brief equipment failure that we quickly resolved," said an NBC spokesman "No game action or commercial time were missed."

Of course, that didn't stop viewers on Twitter from offering their own funny theories about the blackout. Several media writers made a connection between the dead air and the abrupt ending during the final episode of HBO's The Sopranos.